Housemaid Heiress. Elizabeth Beacon

could not have you catch your death, Miss Smith.’

      ‘No, I would be for ever on your conscience, I suppose.’

      ‘I think you could be anyway,’ he replied with a sombre look and Thea’s heart plummeted; she didn’t want to be numbered among an officer’s obligations, especially not his.

      ‘I’m an independent woman,’ she informed him crossly and felt him chuckle through the warm connection of their still-entwined bodies.

      ‘You’re a penniless runaway,’ he corrected and the growing daylight revealed that his grey eyes were shot through with hot silver sparks she should definitely be wary of, since excitement and curiosity were coursing through her in the most immodest fashion.

      ‘I still have my pride,’ she assured him crossly.

      ‘Does it keep you warm at night?’ he asked huskily and the feel of his superbly fit body lying so close said the rest for him.

      He had kept her warm all through the night, and for the first time in her life she felt the traitorous stir of passions she did not understand, and could not hope to resist if she spent much longer in his arms.

      ‘No, but it ain’t so likely to land me back at the foundling’s in nine months’ time.’

      ‘I told you I honour my obligations, I believe,’ he informed her rather coldly and in turn shook his head as if to clear it of incendiary thoughts. ‘I must apologise if I have behaved in an ungentlemanly fashion toward you, Miss Smith. I promise I am not a vile seducer.’

      No, a wayward voice informed her, he would probably prove all too pleasant a one. She tried to rein in scandalous images of being locked in his strong arms, and learning things a proper young lady would never picture. Her baser self told her that if she was to lose her virtue, how much better to do so to a virile and attractive man like Marcus Ashfield rather than Granby. She shuddered at the memory of the night she spent in the dissolute baronet’s bedchamber, and tried not to protest when Marcus misinterpreted her revulsion and let her go, as if he had just unwarily touched a burning brand.

      ‘Will you stay?’ he asked abruptly.

      ‘How long will you be gone?’

      ‘I should reach Rosecombe by breakfast time, if I set off now. Unless yon lunatic wakes up and insists on coming too.’

      The subject of lunatics reminded her what she was running from, and panic threatened, heedless of the injured man only feet away. Fighting it cost her a bruised lip as she bit down on her full lower one, but she managed it and looked up into his questioning eyes.

      ‘Please hurry,’ she pleaded in an urgent whisper she hoped would not wake the sleeping Hussar.

      ‘Don’t worry, I will, and you can keep my armoury.’

      ‘Take it, I will stand less chance of shooting myself.’

      ‘Nick could shoot the pip out of an ace left-handed even in his current state. If anyone sinister appears, wake him up and he will shoot for you. I would not leave you if I thought you were in danger. Oh, and if he decides to importune you with unwanted attentions as well, just squeeze his bad arm.’

      She managed a weak smile, and watched him perform an abbreviated toilette by running his fingers through rebelliously curling dark hair and rubbing a rueful hand over his unshaven chin. Then, with a last look and a quick gesture of farewell, he left the hut with his boots in one hand and his rifle in the other.

      The place seemed cold and empty as she listened to the faint noise he made resuming his boots and the jingle of Hercules’s tack and the indistinct murmur of a deep masculine voice reassuring both horses as he mounted, then rode away. Never had a room felt so silent and bereft as this ramshackle shed, despite the man sleeping in the dying light of the fire and the strengthening daylight round the ill-fitting door. Thea reminded herself of the realities of her new life and sat down to wait in the cold dawn for the injured man to need her, or his rescuers to come.

      Chapter Three

      Marcus rode away from the tumbledown hut with contrary feelings. Of course it was normal for a man waking up to a delicious armful of slenderly curved woman to be aroused by her. Just because the wench had stirred his baser instincts, he did not have to act on them. After all, he was a gentleman—no, he was a nobleman now, and one did not always preclude the other.

      His grandfather’s death, only ten days after that of his direct heir, had brought the new Viscount Strensham home to try to sort out the havoc his father’s wild spending had wrought. Julius Ashfield must be turning in his grave now that the son he had despised had inherited the title he had coveted so long for himself. Although, according to the family lawyer, his father had made damn sure only crushing debt accompanied the family honours—maybe he was having the last laugh after all.

      There was one clear solution, and he would take it if there was truly nothing left, but a man who was contemplating matrimony to the richest woman he could cozen into becoming his viscountess had no business seducing the first attractive female to fall into his arms. He considered Miss Hetty Smith with a reminiscent smile. No doubt the fiery little creature would read him his fortune if he offered to set her up as his wife in watercolour, and he couldn’t afford her even if she surprised him and said yes.

      A picture of her, flushed with sleep and delightfully ruffled, rose in his mind’s eye. With his attention wandering from his quest, it was just as well that Hercules had realised comfortable stables lay close as they neared Sir Edward Darraine’s country home. She had looked enchanting with that heavy mass of tumbling nut-brown curls falling about her slender shoulders and down her back, Marcus remembered with a wolfish glint in his eyes. Yet the sleepy mix of puzzlement and heat in her blue-green eyes indicated she was an innocent, in that if nothing else.

      He reflected on the presence of his untouched purse in his pocket and decided he did her dishonour. She was certainly no thief, nor willing to earn her bread on her back. The grim truth was that she would starve without recourse to one of those undesirable occupations, and he found the idea of her being forced into either repulsive.

      It went against his baser instincts, but he must provide her with an escape from poverty if he was not to exploit her vulnerability to get her into his bed. Shocked by the potent drag of desire at the thought of having her under him, he knew he must reject such a venal notion out of hand. If either of them was to come out of this with any self-respect, the less he saw of her, the better for both of them.

      A very resolute Major Ashfield rode into Ned Darraine’s stable-yard ten minutes later and issued a set of precise orders to the staff, who found themselves running to obey before they questioned his right to hand them out as if he was with his old brigade.

      ‘Marcus, good to see you, old man!’ The master of the house greeted him as if they had parted yesterday, instead of over a year ago when Ned had inherited his own title under very different circumstances.

      ‘Same goes for you, Ned, but where’s Lyddie when I need her?’

      ‘Getting dressed of course. Where else would she be at this unearthly hour of the morning?’

      ‘In the old days she would have been up and about for hours. You have become a fine pair of slug-a-beds since you came home.’

      Ned just smiled an extremely smug smile. ‘One day you’ll understand,’ he assured his cousin, and the memory of where he had awoken himself drove all desire to tease from Marcus’s mind.

      ‘I need you too,’ he insisted instead and Ned knew he wouldn’t ask if he didn’t need it.

      A plan was taking shape in Marcus’s mind for rescuing both his charges, so he had better get on with it before his baser self gave in to temptation.

      Luckily it took less than half an hour for the Darraines’ travelling carriage to be fitted out with quantities of cushions, an ominous-looking box from Lady Lydia Darraine’s stillroom and the noble lady herself.

      ‘Marcus